Bathing facility

ABSTRACT

The outer side rim of the tub or shower has a rib along the outer, upper margin forming a water seal for sliding doors. The doors are hung from a track in a manner whereby they tend to move outwardly and against the rib. Abutment means is provided at the lower margins of the doors to separate the main bodies of the doors, but otherwise the lower margins of the doors are guided only by the above-described manner of hanging the doors.

United States Patent Doan July 29, 1975 [54] BATHING FACILITY 3,359,57312/1967 Casebolt 4/149 3,461,466 8/1969 Weaver et a1 4/149 1761 lnvemorlTroy 2090 Alta VSta 3,500,481 3/1970 McKwane 4/149 Vista, Calif- 920833,805,450 4/1974 Forcina 49/409 [22 Filed: Mar. 22, 1974 PrtmaryExammer-Robert 1. Sm1th PP 453,778 Attorney, Agent, or Firm-Duane C.Bowen 52 us. c1. 4/149; 49/125; 49/409; [571 ABSTRACT 160/197 The outerside rim of the tub or shower has a rib along [51] Int. Cl E06b 7/02 theouter, upper margin forming a water seal for slid- [58] Field of Search4/148, 145, 146, 149, 153, ing doors. The doors are hung from a track ina man 4/154, 150; 49/409, 410, 125; 160/197, 193, ner whereby they tendto move outwardly and against 202, 222 the rib. Abutment means isprovided at the lower margins of the doors to separate the main bodiesof the [56] Referen es Cited doors, but otherwise the lower margins ofthe doors UNITED STATES PATENTS are guided only by the above-describedmanner of 2,833,346 5/1958 Preston 160/197 hangmg the doors 3,296,7441/1967 Hentzi 49/409 10 Claims, 7 Drawing Figures PATENTED JUL 2 9 i975SHEET FIG.2

PATENTED JUL29 i975 SHEET FIG.7

BATI-IING FACILITY BRIEF SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION AND OBJECTIVES Theinvention relates to sliding doors for tubs or showers and, moreparticularly, to improved means for water sealing and guidance of thelower margins of the doors.

Reference is made to my prior US. Pat. No. 3,783,456, issued Jan. 8,1974. The purpose of the present invention, as in the case of the priorpatent, is to eliminate the metal double-channel conventionally used toguide the lower edges of sliding doors in a bathing facility and alsoused to provide a water seal. Such metal double-channel has a number ofdeficiencies including poor appearance, collecting water, being bothunsanitary and subject to corrosion, being most'difficult to clean, andbeing uncomfortable when stepped or sat upon. My prior patent dealt witha new water sealing and guidance system to replace such double channel.The present invention is an improvement over my prior patent byproviding a structure which requires no quidance means on the bathingfacility rim other than a rib at its outer margin and needing no otherhardware on the rim or doors. Instead, guidance according to my presentinvention may be considered to be integral with the doors. This has anumber of advantages, such as simplicity of installation, exposing thefull surface of the rim for cleaning, reduced expense of manufacture andinstallation, etc.

It would be advantageous in some bathing facilities to provide three ormore sliding doors, but this is difficult to achieve without threechannels or without complex hardware of other types. One objective ofthe present invention is to provide water sealing and guidance meansadapted not only to two doors but also to three or more doors, whichstill achieves the general purposes of minimizing or avoiding hardwareon the tub or shower rim, avoiding cleaning and sanitary problems,achieving a good appearance, etc.

Further objectives of my invention include: (a) to provide improvedwater sealing and guidance means for the lower margins of sliding doorsfor tubs and showers; (b) to provide a system for such purpose having aminimum of structure on the rim and providing guidance primarilyintegrated with the doors and the supporting track means; (c) to providesuch a structure with a rim that can be completely cleaned; and (d) todevise such a system which is improved as to economy of manufacture andinstallation.

My invention will be best understood, together with additionalobjectives and advantages thereof, from the following description, readwith reference to the drawings, in which:

FIG. 1 is an elevational view of the front of a bathing facility closedby sliding doors, which illustrates a type of facility in which myinvention has application. The view shows three doors, although myinvention also applied to two doors.

FIG. 2 is an end view, fragmentary, enlarged and partly in section,showing a specific embodiment of my invention.

FIG. 3 is an enlarged, fragmentary, end view, partly in section, showingat the lower margins of the doors a modified form of guidance.

FIG. 4 is a top view, in fragmentary form, of the type of structureshown in FIG. 2.

FIG. 5 is an enlarged fragmentary face view of a portion of the lowermargin of a door of the type shown in FIG. 2.

FIG. 6 is like FIG. 4 only showing the modification viewed in FIG. 3.

FIG. 7 is like FIG. 5 only showing the modification of structure viewedin FIG. 3.

A common present-day construction of bathing facilities in residences isindicated in FIG. I in which a shower or tub is fitted against a backwall 10 and between two side (full or stub) walls 12. The bathingfacility I4 is indicated as being a shower by the low outer wall 16above floor 18, although the invention applies equally to a tub, inwhich case wall 16 would be higher, etc., but nothing peculiar to thisinvention would be affected. A common construction at present is to formthe tub or shower of fiber-reinforced plastic, in a onepiececonstruction also extending part-way up back and side walls 10, 12. Theinvention would also be applicable to enameled cast-iron or steelbathing facilities, etc., as will be apparent to those skilled in theart, but fiber-reinforced plastic bathing facilities do appear todominate the market at present.

Discussion of the general nature of bathing facility 14, of the problemswith prior channeled metal guides at the bottom of sliding doors forsuch facilities, etc., will be somewhat herein as these subjects weredis cussed in my prior US. Pat. No. 3,783,456.

According to my invention, upper shower rim 20 may be builtsubstantially flat (with, perhaps, some inward slant for drainage), withthe exception of a rib 22 at the outer edge of the rim and extendingtherealong, which provides a water seal and an abutment limiting outermovement of the sliding doors. Rib 22 can be formed integral with theremainder of rim 20, as depicted. or may be formed separately andsecured thereto by adhesive, fasteners, etc. In either case, thefunction will be the same.

Three shower doors 24, 26, 28 are depicted. My invention also applies totwo doors. It would also apply to more than three doors, although fouror more doors would be extraordinary. One reason three doorsoccasionally would be desirable is that they could be opened with allthree doors mostly to the right or to the left as viewed in FIG. 1,which would give more room of access to the tub or shower. Additionalwidth of access would be particularly desirable if a narrow shower, forexample, were involved, wherein the opening with two doors (exposingnearly 50% of the width) would be somewhat too narrow for convenience,whereas three doors could be opened to nearly two-thirds of the entirewidth of the bathing facility. I am familiar with three folding doorsfor a bathing facility, but I am not familiar with three sliding doors,although they might have been used. Three doors presents a specialproblem in guidance. Of course three bottom channels could be usedaccording to the prior practice of a double-channel for two doors. It ismy opinion three channels would be objectionable because of poorappearance, difficulty in cleaning, problems of sanitation andcorrosion, etc. If that expedient is considered unsatisfactory, guidanceof three doors is a special problem. For example, if guides were usedupstanding from rim 20, in the manner of my prior US. Pat. No. 3,783,456then when the three doors were fully opened, at least one guide would beexposed, which would be undesirable for a number of reasons, i.e.,appearance, safety,

door reengagement, etc. As will appear from the following discussion, mypresent invention is as applicable to three or more doors as to twodoors without creating any special problem, and it is possible as aresult of my invention that three or more doors may be used morecommonly.

The common practice in sliding doors for bathing facilities is tosuspend them from an overhead track, and an overhead track 30 is used inthe present invention. It will be seen that there is a track member 32,34, 36 for each door 28, 26, 24. One track member 32 is sup ported onthe front wall 40 of the track housing and the other tracks 34, 36 aresupported by stub walls 42, 44. Each door has rollers 46. Usually therewill be two rollers for each door, attached to the upper edge of thedoors in some manner. I have rather symbolically shown the supportingflanges 48. As much of the track, roller and roller support structurecan follow common practices, or obviously may be designed a number ofways, I am not making a point of their general constructions. However,there is a primary point of importance to the present invention in themanner of hanging the doors. Observe that the track 32., 34, 36 for eachdoor 28, 26, 24 is offset outwardly of the bathing facility from thegeneral plane of the associated door, so that the lower portions of thedoors will tend to swing outwardly toward the rib 22. This means thatguidance, restraint or abutment does not have to be provided as tomovement of the lower portions of the doors in a direction inwardly ofthe bathing facility, and only out wardly. In other words, compared witha channel-type guide for a door, the inner flange of the channel wouldnot be needed if a door was hung in this manner as the door would tendto remain in abutment to the other outer flange. In a sense, I havereduced the problem of guidance of the lower portions of the slidingdoors to only a matter of guidance from moving too far outwardly.

It would appear from FIGS. 2 and 3 that outward movement of lowerportions of the doors was simply a matter of the outermost door 28abutting against rib 22, door 26 abutting against door 28, and door 24abutting against door 26. In a sense this is true but in another sensethe system is not quite that simple. That point of view of FIGS. 2 and 3does not take into account the factor seen in FIGS. 1, 4 and 6 that thedoors are only occasionally substantially fully overlapping. Anotherdifficulty is that the system doesn't work out very well if doors 24,26, 28 are in full face abutment.

My system of door hanging involves the principle that if the effectivetrack members for each door are offset outwardly of the bathingfacility, the only essential restraint can be one member, a rib 22 inthis case that also can serve the dual purpose of a water seal. Asviewed in light of my present disclosure, this may not seem to be aparticularly difficult concept. However, my prior US. Pat. No. 3,783,456is witness of how difficult it has been to move from the prior practiceof metal channel-type guides in construction in which the tracks weresuperposed to the doors, to the present construction in which rim isunencumbered by guides with the exception of the outer rib 22. Thismeans the rim can be attractive, easy to clean, etc. As indicated, rib22 may be made of the same fiberreinforced plastic construction as theremainder of the bathing facility, if a plastic bathing facility isinvolved, and it might appear that having the lower margin of a metaldoor riding thereagainst it would be objectionable. This is notnecessarily so, but, in any case, door 28 could have a plastic frame orthe abutment surface of door 28 could be formed of plastic even thoughthe remainder of the frame of the door were to be metal. Note that inthe construction of FIG. 2, the lower margins of the doors are widenedat 50 relative to the remainder of the doors. Each door is shown ashaving the same cross-section, with the idea that uniformity ofmanufacture may be desirable, but the use of the broadened lower margins56 includes a portion 52 on the outer side of door 28 which is notnecessary functionally as a surface flush with the remainder of theouter surface of door 28 would serve as satisfactory abutment to rib 22if there is no problem of abrading rib 22. However, one way to providethe broadened lower margins 50 would be to apply strips bonded orotherwise secured to the doors. If these strips were of I plastic, forexample, and the doors were metal, portion 52 would then provide aplastic abutting surface to rib 22 as a substitute for a metal abuttingsurface. Likewise, the portion of broadened lower margin 50 of theinnermost door 24 on the inner surface at 54 does not have an abuttingfunction and could be omitted unless uniformity of manufacture wereimportant.

The broadened lower margins on both sides of door 26 at 56, 58, togetherwith the companion portions 60, 62 or doors 24, 28 serve to space thedoors apart. This is an important feature and it has proven difficult toconceive of the idea of having the means for spacing the main bodies ofthe doors formed as integral .portions of the doors, as contrasted tothe prior practice of channel guides for spacing doors. Commonly thedoors would not be built to close enough tolerances, and with nothingprotruding, so that they could have full face abutment and slide pasteach other without difficulty. By the use of the spacing lower portions56, 58, 60, 62, the major portions of the faces of the doors are spacedapart and abutment only occurs at the lower margins. As indicatedrelative to marginal portion 52, portions 56, 58, 60, 62 could be eitherintegral, or could be added on strips, such as plastic strips added tometal doors. it is believed they would work satisfactorily as integralmetal parts in the case of metal frames, as they should guide alongagainst each other satisfactorily with reasonable manufacturingtolerances, without undue noise or abrasion. As implicit from FIG. 3,the broadened margins could be only on either side of each door, insteadof on both sides, in a manner similar to the disposition of buttonguides or spacers in FIG. 3. It will be understood from FIGS. 4 and 5that the widened marginal portions 50 extend across the complete lowermargin of each door.

FIGS. 3, 6 and '7 indicate the use of button-type spacers or abutments70, that can be at a single location on each door, as a substitute forthe full marginal widening of the lower margins of the doors shown at 50in FIGS. 2, 4 and 5. I dont mean to be particularly restrictive for thepurpose of this specification and the claims by describing this form ofspacer as button-like, but a round spacer would be applicable. The pointis merely that each spacer 70 does not need to extend along the fulllower margin '72 of the associated door. If these are used, the systemshown in FIG. 6 is applicable, in which handles for the doors act asabutments to keep them in the right series. For example, if the abutment70 between doors 26 and 28 were at the opposite end relative to door 26this would not be workable but, on the other hand, it does not matterwhether that abutment is attached to door 26 or 28. The same appliessimilarly to the abutment 70 between doors 24 and 26.

Some form of abutment is needed to keep the doors 24, 26, 28 serially inthe order depicted. For example, if in FIG. 4 or FIG. 6 door 26 could bedisposed completely to the left and doors 28, 24 were to be disposedcompletely at the right, then the system of guidance of door 28 to rib22, door 26 to door 28, and door 24 to door 26 would no longer apply. Asit is common to provide handles 80 for doors, these can be used asabutments to prevent the series from being disrupted. For example, inFIGS. 4 and 6 if someone tried to move intermediate door 26 to the leftof door 28, the handle 80 on the inner side of door 28 would interferewith this. Likewise if it were attempted to move door 26 to the right ofdoor 24 as viewed (or to move door 24 to the left of door 26 as viewed),the handle 80 on the inner side of door 24 would interfere with thisbeing accomplished. Note that the handle 80 on the outside of door 28 orthe towel bar 82 on the inside of door 24 do not have this abutmentfunction. If a pair of doors (as distinguished from three or more doors)were built in the manner shown in FIGS. 2, 4 and 5, it would not matterfunctionally whether a door were at the right or left.

The operation of my invention will be understood from the foregoingdescription but the briefly review it, my new system of guiding thelower margins of doors in bathing facilities includes the use of anouter rib 22 on rim 20, track members 32, 34, 36 offset outwardly of thebathing facility 14 relative to the planes of doors 28, 26, 24, and theuse of spacing means between the doors and perhaps between the outermostdoor and rib 22. In the case of three doors, the restraint inpositioning represented by some of the handles 80 also becomesimportant. It will be observed that this construction permits completelycleaning rim 20, the appearance is excellent, problems of sanitation andcorrosion are avoided, this is an economical construction both inmanufacture and installation, etc. My construction is thoroughlyapplicable to three or more doors as well as two doors.

Having thus described my invention, I do not wish to be understood aslimiting myself to the exact details of construction shown. Instead Iwish to cover these modifications thereof which will occur to thoseskilled in the art after learning of my disclosure and which areproperly within the scope of my invention.

I claim:

1. The improvement in a bathing facility having an outer rim on one sideand at least two lapping doors mounted above said rim and a singlehorizontal rib extending along the outer upper margin of said rimsubstantially above the remainder of the top of said rim, each doorbeing hung depending from a track of track means, each door havingroller means to travel on the associated track which supports the doorin movement therealong, comprising:

a. each track being located outwardly of the bathing facility relativeto the plane of the associated door so that the lower margins of saiddoors will tend to swing outwardly and against said rib, and

b. abutment means acting on said lower margins of said doors, spacingsaid doors apart.

2. The subject matter of claim 1 in which there are at least threelapped doors and said abutment means is integral with said doors and isindependent from said rim.

3. The subject matter of claim 1 in which said abutment means is part ofsaid doors and independent from said rim including first abutment meanson the outermost of said lapping doors extending beyond the normal planeof the outermost door and bearing on said rib and including secondabutment means acting between said outermost door and the next door tospace them apart and extending from and beyond the normal plane of atleast one door to bear on the other door.

4. The subject matter of claim 3 in which at least one of said first andsecond abutment means has the form of a button-like projection from theassociated door.

5. The subject matter of claim 3 in which at least one of said first andsecond abutment means has the form of a full lower marginal projectionfrom edge to edge of the associated door.

6. The subject matter of claim 5 in which said full lower marginalprojection is a symmetrical thickening of the lower margin of saidassociated door resulting in projection from both faces of that door.

7. The subject matter of claim 1 in which there are first, second andthird lapped doors in sequence in a direction from outside to inside ofsaid bathing facility.

8. The subject matter of claim 7 in which said abutment means is part ofsaid doors and independent from said rim including first abutment meanson said first door extending beyond the normal plane of said first doorand bearing on said rib and second and third abutment means actingbetween said first and second doors and between said second and thirddoors respectively, each of said second and third abutment meansextending from and beyond the normal plane of at least one door to bearon an adjacent door.

9. The subject matter of claim 8 in which at least one of said first,second and third abutment means has the form of a button-like projectionfrom the associated door.

10. The subject matter of claim 8 in which at least one of said first,second and third abutment means has the form of a full lower marginalprojection from edge to edge of the associated door.

1. The improvement in a bathing facility having an outer rim on one sideand at least two lapping doors mounted above said rim and a singlehorizontal rib extending along the outer upper margin of said rimsubstantially above the remainder of the top of said rim, each doorbeing hung depending from a track of track means, each door havingroller means to travel on the associated tract which supports the doorin movement therealong, comprising: a. each track being locatedoutwardly of the bathing facility relative to the plane of theassociated door so that the lower margins of said doors will tend toswing outwardly and against said rib, and b. abutment means acting onsaid lower margins of said doors, spacing said doors apart.
 2. Thesubject matter of claim 1 in which there are at least three lapped doorsand said abutment means is integral with said doors and is independentfrom said rim.
 3. The subject matter of claim 1 in which said abutmentmeans is part of said doors and independent from said rim includingfirst abutment means on the outermost of said lapping doors extendingbeyond the normal plane of the outermost door and bearing on said riband including second abutment means acting between said outermost doorand the next door to space them apart and extending from and beyond thenormal plane of at least one door to bear on the other door.
 4. Thesubject matter of claim 3 in which at least one of said first and secondabutment means has the form of a button-like projection from theassociated door.
 5. The subject matter of claim 3 in which at least oneof said first and second abutment means has the form of a full lowermarginal projection from edge to edge of the associated door.
 6. Thesubject matter of claim 5 in which said full lower marginal projectionis a symmetrical thickening of the lower margin of said associated doorresulting in projection from both faces of that door.
 7. The subjectmatter of claim 1 in which there are first, second and third lappeddoors in sequence in a direction from outside to inside of said bathingfacility.
 8. The subject matter of claim 7 in which said abutment meansis part of said doors and independent from said rim including firstabutment means on said first door extending beyond the normal plane ofsaid first door and bearing on said rib and second and third abutmentmeans acting between said first and second doors and between said secondand third doors respectively, each Of said second and third abutmentmeans extending from and beyond the normal plane of at least one door tobear on an adjacent door.
 9. The subject matter of claim 8 in which atleast one of said first, second and third abutment means has the form ofa button-like projection from the associated door.
 10. The subjectmatter of claim 8 in which at least one of said first, second and thirdabutment means has the form of a full lower marginal projection fromedge to edge of the associated door.